


Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight

by LoversAntiquities



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Outsider, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, Post-Series, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5827600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoversAntiquities/pseuds/LoversAntiquities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Off in a far corner of Oak Hill Cemetery sits a granite monument, approximately three feet by two. No embossments, nothing extravagant about it—just a gray block of shaped stone with the name Winchester engraved across the front. It’s been there for five years, longer than you’ve worked the grounds, the dates inscribed reading 1979 to 2024. Whoever he was was by no means old, practically in his prime—what led him to being buried below your feet, no one will tell you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight

Off in a far corner of Oak Hill Cemetery sits a granite monument, approximately three feet by two. No embossments, nothing extravagant about it—just a gray block of shaped stone with the name Winchester engraved across the front. It’s been there for five years, longer than you’ve worked the grounds, the dates inscribed reading 1979 to 2024. Whoever he was was by no means old, practically in his prime—what led him to being buried below your feet, no one will tell you.

In fact, no one’s told you much since you started working here, a part time job your uncle got you because you apparently need to get out of the house more often. Becoming a part-time groundskeeper at a cemetery wasn’t even in your line of thought. But they pay you, nonetheless. Every day from five to eight in the afternoon, you rake leaves and mow the grass; arrange the flowers that’ve been left that day and remove them a week later; make sure no one’s graffitied any of the headstones or kicked them over.

It’s calming—this monument isn’t. Something about it draws you closer every time you visit, like there’s a spirit pulling you there, wanting you to wonder. To ask, _who_ this person was. _Why_ they’re in such a secluded section of the grounds, and why that man keeps coming by every Wednesday.

He’s a handsome guy, sure; dark hair, a suit in need of tailoring, and a tan coat that reaches to his knees. Always the same clothes, always the same sad eyes. Like he’s lost something, like he’s waiting for it to come back. He sits on a wrought iron bench beside the stone, next to the Smith’s and the Christoph’s, their son one of your former classmates. Sometimes he stares at the stone, sometimes he sits with his head in his hands. Once, you swear you saw him crying, his shoulders and hair covered in snow, ice streaming down his cheeks, freezing at his chin.

Every other day, the monument receives no visitors. Once in a while, another man with long, shaggy hair will come and sit on the bench with a dog, and he’ll talk like there’s actually someone there. Part of you thinks he’s crazy—another part thinks he’s talking to the dead. Actually _talking_. Whether he is or not, you don’t ask. It’s none of your business, and it never will be.

The two strangers aren’t the weirdest thing you’ve seen in that section, either. No, every Wednesday, after the cemetery gates are closed to guests and the lights are shut off in the excuse for a visitor’s center, the man in the coat sits atop the monument, encased in stone. You only noticed it in passing, a night out with your friends that led you in that direction. They asked you where you worked—you said, “There,” and pointed to the grounds, not expecting to see a being with wings outstretched atop its new perch, stone feathers stretching into the tree covering the plot. But the following afternoon, it was gone, the stone cold, untouched. No dust, only a single feather left behind, iridescent and sharp.

It becomes a routine—every Wednesday, you watch the man in the coat mourn and never once do you see him leave. Every Wednesday night, you walk to that end of the cemetery and look through the iron bars at the man perched atop, always in the same position—kneeling, with an elbow perched on a raised knee and a hand covering his eyes, a wreath in his other hand, a set of stone wings stretching up from his back a good seven feet, feathers frayed and torn, missing in places. The same man in the coat—the _Angel_.

There’s nothing in the cemetery—or _state_ —records as to who the monument belongs to. The most you can find is a birth certificate for a Dean Winchester, and he’s been dead for decades. But they share the same birthdate, the same name. But why be buried now? Why not years ago? Unless he had been interred elsewhere, or faked his death. Or, maybe this was the wrong person.

Whatever the reason, you still keep your vigil, make sure the plot is clean and the flowers the Angel leaves always have fresh water. It’s the least you can do between visits. Whether he appreciates it or not, you don’t know.

One Wednesday, he sits on the bench when the long-haired man shows up, his Labrador pulling away and promptly jumping into the lap of the Angel. He doesn’t mind, apparently, just pets the dog’s head while it’s owner stumbles over, winded from being dragged. They embrace when the Angel finally stands, Long Hair holding him for a few minutes, just standing there. It’s weird, if not comforting, to know the two know each other. You occupy yourself with raking the last of autumn away while they talk, a conversation not meant for your ears.

But you hear anyway. “Does he talk to you?” the Angel asks him, eyes pleading, his voice quivering.

Long Hair nods, and the Angel breaks down against his chest, sobs that echo across the grounds. Long Hair just holds him and joins in, face buried in the Angel’s hair. “He loved you, you know,” he says to the Angel, both hands fisted in his coat. “Did he ever tell you?”

“Every night,” the Angel replies, somewhat more composed, now wiping futilely at his eyes. “I was there when he died, he just… didn’t fight it. I watched his soul leave, Sam. I can’t fly to him, I can’t… He won’t talk to me.”

“He’s here,” Long Hair—Sam, apparently—answers, and places his hand atop the stone, brushes a few leaves away. “I can… I’ve been talking to him, when I’m here. He sits by you when you’re here.”

If anything, the Angel sobs harder, the force of it wracking his entire frame. “Tell him I’m here,” he begs, _pleads_. “Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him—Tell him I’ll come for him, I’ll take him with me.”

“He heard you,” Sam soothes, stroking a hand down the Angel’s back. “He says he can’t wait.”

Later that night, after your shift has ended and the visitors have departed and Sam has left, you jump the exterior fence and walk to the Winchester monument, to where the Angel is perched atop it, now with a blade in hand, granite wreath shattered below the plot. You’ve never considered suicide in your life, but you know what this man is planning. What the Angel will do once you leave, once the streetlights dim and he’s left alone, without a witness in the world.

You leave a rose atop his bent knee and send up a prayer, crossing yourself. For the creature atop the stone, for the man buried six feet below your feet.

Beside the monument as you prepare to leave, a transparent man watches you, dressed in an aged leather coat and blue jeans, his eyes startling green in the light from the streetlamp. He smiles at you and mouths out a ‘thank you’ before he looks up at the Angel, a new glint in his eyes. Longing. Hope.

The lamp shuts off as soon as you make it to the crosswalk outside the visitor’s center, and for a moment, looking over your shoulder, you swear you see the shape of an Angel take flight over the cemetery, carrying a man in its arms.

You know, finally, he’s at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SO SORRY. But, uh, I was looking at my iOS photos on my Facebook and remembered I took [this photo](https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpl1/v/t1.0-9/10897034_10152944615398879_4005686863848978531_n.jpg?oh=06b3102f85fe354759a3acbde8a10a7c&oe=57495A19) a few years ago and I was like, hey, let's write something tragic! I blame everyone for not stopping me.
> 
> Title is from the James Taylor song.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://tragidean.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/loversantiquity).


End file.
